He returned however a few
months subsequently, complaining of “faint spells” in the
mornings, accompanied with excessive nervousness, and a renewed
though moderate cardiac infrequency. Electrical treatment,
similar to that above described, soon restored him. One or two
more slight relapses occurred during the next six months. For
over a year past however Mr. S. has been in the enjoyment of
perfect and undisturbed health. His normal pulse ranges from 72
to 80.
Whoever is familiar with the physiological effects of electric baths,
will readily concede their great utility in a variety of conditions that
I have not thus far specially alluded to. Of such I would mention
ASTHENIÆ, ATONIC AND DEBILITATED CONDITIONS GENERALLY, including the
state of CONVALESCENCE FROM ACUTE DISEASES and the DECLINE OF ADVANCING
AGE; many cases of CHRONIC HEADACHE; some INCLASSIFIABLE CONDITIONS OF
MARASMUS and MALNUTRITION, etc., etc. In all such cases, when purely
functional and uncomplicated by incurable organic disease, good results
may be confidently looked for.
* * * * *
With these remarks I conclude my subject. Whichever the errors that a
too limited experience may have engendered—and I doubt not there are
many, I cannot on reviewing my work accuse myself of lack of candor nor
yet of undue enthusiasm. I have cited but a small proportion of the
successful cases whereof I possess records; still I believe that I have
adduced amply sufficient clinical proof of the great value as a remedial
agent of electric baths, and of the desirability of their more general
adoption. I would more especially call attention to the
inappropriateness of deferring their employment until almost all other
remedies have been exhausted; and when I reflect that pretty much all
those cases that had been referred to me by other physicians had already
had the doubtful benefit of almost every other conceivable treatment,
while many of those who came of their own accord, had in addition made
the rounds of all the quacks, and exhausted nearly all the nostrums that
are to be found advertised in the columns of our daily papers, the
wonder seems that the results obtained were as good as they have been. I
sincerely trust that in the future physicians will avail themselves
more frequently than heretofore of a remedy that is certainly capable of
accomplishing much good; and I hope that in addition to myself there
will be found others, more competent, to devote themselves to the study
of the subject. To these, and perhaps to myself at a future time, I
relegate the task of correcting my errors and promulgating hitherto
undiscovered truths.
Footnotes:
[Footnote 10: Centralblatt für die medicinischen Wissenschaften,
No. 17, 1875.]
[Footnote 11: The apparatus used in these experiments was that
of Du Bois-Reymond, with a Grove’s element.]
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